Honoring our authentic selves

Sensing, feeling, judging, perceiving, thinking. We all use all of these sensory skills (hopefully) everyday. How we use these mental acuities and how much we employ any one of them determines how we take in information and make decisions. Or at least, that’s what psychologist Carl Jung believed. We spent the morning today at ISANNE Leads going over our MBTI types and navigating scenarios in ways that do and don’t appeal to our authentic selves. I took the Myers-Briggs test years ago, and frankly, I don’t even remember what type I was. It’s a good thing that I don’t remember, because it didn’t skew my approach to the questionnaire or my estimation of what type I was. And there’s the crux of this whole MBTI exercise and of the ISANNE Leads week – who are we when we are our true, authentic selves?

This was an interesting morning, not just to review our own, personal management and working styles, but more specifically, to delve into authenticity. How do you, at your core, react to information and make decisions about that information? Over time, we have all compensated for blind spots, some of us taking that compensation way, way back, i.e. how do I frame myself as a strong leader? As a competent woman? How do I make myself more approachable? More organized? This instrument challenges us to drop the expectations we have for ourselves to be all things to all people, and look at who we actually are. Then, we should celebrate those strengths, and create a great team to shore up our weaknesses. ESFP and proud!